Et is a remarkable achievement to win a tennis tournament without dropping a set. However, the fact that not even a set would be lost if all opposing game wins were added up is phenomenal. Iga Swiatek won the WTA tournament in Doha on Saturday. So far, so normal. She was the defending champion, she is by far the world number one.
The manner but was anything but normal. In the entire tournament, Swiatek lost only five games and thus fewer than is necessary to win a set. It’s a world record in professional tennis. Only the great Suzanne Lenglen had accomplished the same feat at Wimbledon nearly 100 years ago.
Admittedly, a few circumstances played into the hands of the Pole. In round one she had a bye, as is usual for the top seeded players in tournaments in the 500 category. In addition, her quarter-final opponent Belinda Bencic could not compete.
But Swiatek swept away all the others: 6:0, 6:1 against Danielle Collins from the USA, 6:0, 6:1 against the Russian Weronika Kudermetova, 6:3, 6:0 against the American Jessica Pegula in the final – all players who have been or are in the top ten in the world.
Swiatek said afterwards that she was glad she was “very focused in every game”. Because at the beginning of the season “I had the feeling that my head would fly off sometimes”. At the Australian Open, the 21-year-old lost in the round of 16. Now she seems to be her old self again. This is bad news for their competition.
